Bugaje’s curious theory

Dr. Usman Bugaje’s curious theory, that the North on the basis of its land mass, “owns” the oil in the Niger Delta, is manifestly illogical. Besides, it is brazenly provocative and unconscionable. Worst of all, it is vacuously supremacist.

All these are bad enough in themselves. But issuing from a citizen of a country that has groped for 100 years in search of a national community, it is culpable lack of patriotism, which borders on combative recklessness.

Still, the greater shock is not that Dr. Bugaje made that statement, for such northern supremacist mindset has been around for long. It is rather that it met with a thunderous applause, which meant it touched a rapturous chord among the rabidly converted.

Might power supremacy still dwell in the northern elite’s heart, after the untold catastrophe such a mindset has brought on the northern people — and Nigerians in general?

Still, that idea is not new.

At the height of the northern power hubris, Alhaji Maitama Sule, the Kano-born senior citizen and brilliant orator, propounded the theory that different segments of Nigeria had their divine missions. The North’s especial talent, he reasoned, was to rule.

So, shouldn’t the country, he seemed to suggest, do a grand division of labour, where the North would concentrate on its core talent of ruling, while the other parts of the country concentrated on trade and commerce, diplomacy and the civil service, to the glory of motherland?

Kano Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, also shows some schizophrenic policy streak, when the stake is northern nationalism. On one hand, he authors policies with the progressive temper of radically developing Kano’s human resource, to enhance the state’s competitiveness in the Nigerian social-economic community. That is very laudable.

But, when the issue is oil, its ownership and derivation, he reclines into the conservative laager, with the same impatient radicalism, with which he is sworn to developing his Kano people.

Is it then not something of a split personality: a governor sworn to remaking his people to use their mind — and create their own wealth — is the same that appears fixated with oil, hundreds of kilometres away in the Niger Delta?

It is a similar oil-fixated mindset that drove Dr. Bugaje’s fantastic latest theory.

Even, among the “new North” — smart technocrats, bureaucrats and sundry professionals who can hold their own anywhere in the world — there appears this central thinking, to which oil is pivotal.

For all his brilliance, efficiency and modernity, Nasir el-Rufai comes across from his book, The Accidental Public Servant, as not necessarily bothered by a restructured polity, so long as Nigeria’s resources are well harnessed.

That is by no means a bad thing. But as long as Nigeria remains a resource omnibus, with oil as its core and with nary attempt at every section of the country developing its own resource niche, there would be unholy fixation with oil. That would continue to spur the sort of statement Bugaje just made.

Another northern star, Nuhu Ribadu, the former anti-sleaze fiery angel, can also hold his own anywhere. Still, it is doubtful if has given much thought to a truly federalist Nigeria, where every segment of the union would proudly fend for itself.

Yet, these are the brains sorely needed for the fresh thinking to wean the North from its sickly crush on oil, and the resultant ultra-dependency syndrome.

That of course brings the matter right back to Dr. Bugaje’s claim — that the North occupies 72 per cent of Nigeria’s landmass; so it anchors the Niger Delta, and ensures its claim to the oil in adjoining sea!

So, to that extent, the North can lay some claim to the oil, even it is far away! If there was an extra-ordinary piece of soulless sophistry, this was it!

Still, some analysis of Dr. Bugaje’s claim. If indeed the North has 72 per cent of Nigeria’s land mass, that would be some form of asset, wouldn’t it? Put another way, that could mean 72 per cent of Nigeria’s land asset?

But pray, in contrast, what percentage of Nigeria’s liability does the North log, even with its rich land asset? No sarcasm intended here, but that could be gleaned from the perennial southward drift of its cheap labour, the virtual collapse of its community with the advent of the Boko Haram crisis and its empty swagger, which thinly veils its mortal fear of losing out on the oil revenue front.

Besides, the mindless violence that has seized the region, like some Armageddon, could be explained away to religious or ethnic tension. But really, it is an economic pull, a logical tragedy for an economically parched people, falling upon themselves in sheer economic madness.

Yet, even with its challenges, the North boasts the brains to turn around its parlous human development index, if ruinous mindsets, like Bugaje’s, would not keep popping up.

Such mindsets dream of easy money from oil — knowing full well that region is insulated from the environment-blighting oil bearing Niger Delta communities face — and not particularly caring about fair compensation in derivation, for that acute environmental pain.

But perhaps the chicken would soon come home to roost, if oil is eventually struck in the Lake Chad basin. It is then the region would realise derivation is not just excess payout, but money earned from local economic value; and for acute pains from environmental destruction.

So, as Nigeria urgently needs a restructuring of its polity, the North — at least that segment of it that could applaud Dr. Bugaje’s sophistry — needs a radical restructuring of the mind. Its socio-economic salvation would come not from oil dole from the Niger Delta or even from Lake Chad basin, but from wealth driven by its own people the hard way.

That is how the North, like other parts of the country, can develop its economic niche, and therefore positively compete in a Nigerian commonwealth, where economically prosperous regions deliver mass development and prosperity for Nigerian citizens.

But the Bugaje theory could not have come at a better time; and the National Conference that kicked off yesterday must take especial notice.

Even if the Jonathan powers-that-be are bent on playing games as being alleged by many, the delegates cannot afford such dangerous games.

Nigeria will not survive on a supremacist mindset that makes empty claims, based on vacuous logic and culpable sophistry; and powered by a reckless penchant to be insensitive, unfair and unjust.

The Bugajes, the el-Rufais, the Ribadus and the Kwankwasos are bright minds that owe their region the bounden duty to radically alter its thinking; and turn the North into an economic dynamo that can compete with the best the rest of Nigeria can offer.

That is the only way to the Nigerian dream. Any other way is an expressway to perdition; the sort that, for 100 years now, has left a political amalgam in a virtual cul-de-sac, on its unending journey to nationhood.